Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta donates $1 million to Trump’s fund
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has donated $1 million (£786,000) to the inauguration fund for President-elect Donald Trump.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, had dined with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in November, aiming to mend the relationship between himself, his company, and the former president following the election. This came after years of tension, with Trump having criticized Zuckerberg and Facebook, calling the platform “anti-Trump” in 2017.
Meta’s $1 million donation to the inaugural fund, confirmed to several media outlets on Wednesday, marks a notable gesture, as the company did not make similar contributions to President Joe Biden’s 2020 inaugural fund or Trump’s previous fund in 2016. Inauguration funds are typically used to cover events and activities surrounding a president’s swearing-in, with some viewing them as a way to gain favor with the incoming administration.
The donation was first reported by the Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by CBS, the BBC’s US media partner. The BBC has reached out to Meta for further comment.
Trump, who will be sworn in as the 47th U.S. president on January 20, has had a historically strained relationship with Zuckerberg. Tensions escalated when Facebook and Instagram suspended Trump’s accounts in 2021 for his comments regarding the violent Capitol insurrection on January 6. Since then, Trump has criticized Meta, calling Facebook an “enemy of the people.”
In addition, Trump has argued that a law targeting TikTok would unfairly benefit Facebook, and in August, Zuckerberg told Republican lawmakers that he regretted giving in to pressure from the Biden administration to “censor” certain content on Facebook and Instagram during the pandemic.
Despite these past conflicts, Trump appeared to soften his stance, stating in October that it was “nice” Zuckerberg was “staying out of the election” and thanking him for a personal phone call after an assassination attempt. However, Zuckerberg’s relationship with Trump remains distant compared to that of tech mogul Elon Musk, who has been dubbed Trump’s “First Buddy” due to his significant donations to Trump’s campaign and his leadership role in the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). While there has been no rapprochement between Zuckerberg and Trump, the much-discussed cage fight between Musk and Zuckerberg seems to be off the table.